An Agenda of Love – February 24, 2002
In today’s busy world, few of us can manage without a daily list of things we can do. Our agenda reminds us to “mail the bills,” or “buy dog food,” to make medical appointments, attend meetings, or remember birthdays. We carefully plan to meet our responsibilities, from putting out the garbage to paying our taxes. But how many of us plan to accomplish our greatest responsibility of all?
Both the Old and New Testaments instruct us to love our neighbor as ourselves.1 And most of us quickly respond when a crisis strikes our community or nation. But learning to love others is not the work of a day, a week, a month, or a year—or a disaster. Rather, to make such love a part of our character requires thoughtful attention, day in and day out.
Edgar B. Brossard, U. S. commissioner of customs under four presidents and an active churchman, once explained how he planned such acts of love. Each morning while shaving, Brossard asked himself what he could do that day to help someone. By the time he finished shaving, he had a plan, which he put into action before the day was over.
Our lives are bursting with responsibilities. We rear our children, develop our talents, earn a living, support our communities, broaden our minds—the list goes on and on. Yet can any of these duties have greater priority than the timeless commandment to “love one another”?2
All our daily tasks become richer and more rewarding when we add one act of love for another. It might be a get-well card to a sick friend, a contribution of food to a homeless shelter, a snowy sidewalk cleared for an elderly neighbor. Planning such kindnesses into each day we’ll find they somehow fit into our busy schedules and that every activity of our day is more rewarding in the afterglow of genuine love shared.
Program #3784
1. Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 19:19.
2. John 15:12.